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We slept in until 9. I never do that!
It is 11:00 now and we have had our breakfast and are ready to face the day.
Today is planting day. Susan got all her flowers the other day and now it's time to put them in some dirt so we can begin the process of killing them. We are very good at that.
I had a roof guy come by today to give me a bid on the roof for the Carriage House. His name is Eric and he works with Mark's son, Mitch. Actually, Mitch works for him.
As you can see, this is a job that must be done. I'm hoping it isn't going to cost more than two grand. However, it really needs to get done so, I will probably pay whatever he comes up with within reason.
The rafters need more support and we need to get that bow out of the ridge line. I'm going to have him add some zinc strips to help ward off the moss.
It looks to be a hot hot HOT day.
I have lots to do and I have done none of it. It is almost one o'clock so I had best get my ass in gear.
Vroom Vroom!
Well, I don't know how successful I was today in getting stuff done. I got the yard trimmed up with Mark's weed wacker. I stole my neighbors fire ring for a late night fire. I got the pond cleaned out and got the turtle fountain working.
Beyond that, I layed around my neighbors pool and I tore apart the old Weber Barbecue to see if there was anything to salvage. The answer appears to be, "No!"
We had a nice fire to end the day and burn up a bunch of personal papers that we didn't want in the garbage stream.
It is just after 8 AM on the first day of the Memorial Day Weekend. It looks like it is going to be a nice weekend as far as the weather is concerned. There is a lot to do today, but first things first. Coffee!
Okay, the coffee is brewing. I can almost start my day.
Before the day begins, I need to talk about the furnace. I finally shut it down the other day. I think I turned it off last Monday or Tuesday. All I did was flip the switch on the thermostat so the pilot light is still burning. I'll get down there today to shut that down as well.
With the furnace off, we should see a substantial drop in our monthly bill from Washington Water Power. Then we can start getting on track to get our bill down to zero.
We are on the comfort plan where we pay the same amount every month...about $300.00. During the winter, the monthly payment does not cover our monthly bill, so it builds up. I'm not exactly sure where we are right now, but by September, we should be pretty close to even.
Coffee's ready!
One of the projects I have for today, or more accurately, for the weekend, is to continue the clean out and organization of the garage. It would be nice if I could get some clean up and organization in the Carriage House as well. We'll see!
Once I get myself up and dressed, I'm going to haul a bunch of tires to the tire store and hopefully get a little cash for the many gently used tires that are in the garage.
Okay, a giant step forward in Garage cleaning. The tires are gone. I didn't get any money for them but I didn't have to pay the guy anything either.
So, here's how the space inside looks right now. It's quite the conflagration.
I am going to try and organize what's is left in there and hopefully, find some stuff to toss. Let's see how I do.
Okay, it was not a great job of reorganizing and an even worse job of tossing. I can also tell you that the above picture does not do justice to the amount of room I have created in the garage. One can now walk around the space with no difficulty and almost completely park a mid sized car in there.
In my book, which is the only book that matters, that is progress.
Next, Susan wanted to get the umbrella and chairs and the like down from the Carriage House and make them useful. She also wanted her teak planter bench out. Upon seeing it in the light of day, she decided it need some maintenance.
So I broke out the random orbit oscillating sander and went to work on removing the old lacquer that was peeling and clinging to the wood. It was not a thorough job of sanding. Remember, we are using my book.
We then applied a coat of Teak Oil to the visible areas and ended up with this sort of affair.
I think I'm going to apply another coat tomorrow, but it remains to be seen as my book may have other things in mind.
It is now much later in the day and the sun has gone down and the evening has grown dark.
We invited Mark over because I wanted to borrow his weed wacker and we went over to Geraldo's to get some Mexican food to go and then proceeded to the Hub where we ate said Mexican food.
That pretty much ended our day.
Time for bed!
We walked down the block last night to say good bye to an old friend. Perhaps not a friend, but an acquaintance. Yes, definitely an acquaintance.
It was the old tree on the corner of Waverly Place and Washington.
This is one of my favorite houses on the park. I really like its design. What is left of the tree you can see in the street. It was a big old majestic maple tree.
I have a particular affinity for it because it had this big old hole in the side of the trunk. Years ago on a walk, I stopped to by the tree to inspect the hole. Sitting just above the hole was an owl. He was well out of my reach so he didn't freak out...in fact, he just sat there and looked at me...wisely, and perhaps a bit of malcontent.
One does not see many owls in Spokane. Especially during daylight hours. So that tree has always held a special place in my memory.
It's sad to see this tree go but it had to happen. A giant branch broke free a month ago and fell into the yard.
You can see from this close up that the tree was quite diseased.
That hollowed out middle is from fungi eating away at it. It extended quite a ways through the tree.
So, see ya later Mr Maple. I shall remember you fondly, especially now that I have immortalized you here.
I have been meaning to report that I shut down the boiler last weekend so we have officially been without a source of whole house heat for four full days.
However, I have concluded I was a bit premature in the restriction of heat. The last few days have been nothing but cold and rainy. We got a half inch of rain yesterday according to the WeatherStan 5000 Weather Station. The hops are happy but nothing else.
So, I have just re-lit the pilot on the boiler and cranked it to eleven. I think I'll leave it there until Memorial Day. Then we shall see if the timing is right to shut things down again and coast on the good graces of Mom Nature for a few months.
Three very important events took place here today.
The first was waking up on this side of the dirt. That is an important event every day and one I plan to keep pursuing for the foreseeable future.
The second was the hanging of pictures in the bathroom. This was an important event because the hanging of pictures required the puncturing of wallpaper with hooks upon which to hang said pictures.
It all went well and the trauma of the defaced wall paper has been dealt with. The pictures are enjoying their first full day of display.
The third big event was the painting of the door trim in the bathroom. This event's significance lies in the fact that it is the last item to be completed in order to officially declare the bathroom finished.
There is just a little touch up left and then the declaration of bathroom completion shall be signed and ratified. But since we have no rats, it shall be catified.
There is mucho bueno work to do today and I don't have time to be sitting here telling you about it. I need to get out there and do it.
First, I'm off to a friends to help with some yard work.
Okay, that went well. I worked at Gail's from 11:00 to 1:00 and got quite bit accomplished. She has a bunch of trees that need to be cut back. I'm creating a lot of piles.
When I got home we went over to a friend of Susan's who is giving us a mattress, It's a big California King with Memory Foam. Ronnie hauled it over in her truck and helped us get it in the house.
To get it up the stairs, I got good ol'Mark. I had to drive out to the Valley to get good ol'Mark cuz he was having his mechanic do some work on his car.
We returned here to the house and managed to man handle that floppy mattress up the stairs. We also brought the old one down the stairs. That was easier.
Then we retired to the front porch for beers.
I had to get Mark home so he could shower and be prepared to be picked up by his daughter to go to a cousins sixtieth birthday party. There seems to be a lot of those going around this year.
Now we are winding down and getting ready to go to dinner with Mom. She has just returned from se7en months in the dessert. That's right, she was encased in ice cream and chocolate sauce for over half a year.
No! She was in Palm Springs. But now she is home for the foreseeable summer and we are glad to have her back.
I guess that's it for Saturday. We didn't get much work done, but what we got done is okay.
Susan is working tonight and I am here at the house, all alone except for the cat and my G&T.
I am working on building up some gumption to try looking for some way to attempt to start the search to begin the journey to do some work of some sort or fashion in the bathroom.
The last remaining item is the trim around the door.
Instead of that, I have been looking on line for information about how to repair an old mirror that is losing it's silver backing. I found that there are lots of YouTube videos showing me how to take a new mirror and antique it...make it look old.
There are very few videos that tell you how to refurbish an old mirror from looking antique to a bright new finish.
That's what I want to do with this old mirror from the Medicine Cabinet we removed from the old bathroom.
The first video I watched said don't even bother. The harsh chemicals you have to use and precautions you have to take to secure the mercury that is in an old mirror are not worth the environmental hazards that you may be exposing the world to.
I'm not much of a tree hugger. Nor do I have plans of flinging mercury spuriously about. It seems to me there should be a safe way to make this happen.
I have now watched several videos and none have given me a firm grasp on what exactly is the best method to proceed.
So, I guess the best method to proceed is to continue the research here on the InterWeb and elsewhere.
It can now be really officially dubbed Spring with the arrival of Bloomsday. Susan and Mark ran while I held the table at the Onion.
It all went exactly like it does every year. Susan tried to train ahead of time and was very unhappy with her preparation. Hence, she was nervous this morning and worried about the race.
Even with all the worry, she finished the same time as last year...
1:33 and something.
As usual, Mark didn't train at all and had a time of 1:29:something.
We ate our faces off at the Onion and now are very full for the whole rest of the day.
Afterwards, we came home and piled into the Hot Tub. While I was at the Onion waiting for the runners, I started wondering how long it has been since we have had the hot tub. I was able to look it up here and found we got it in place in August of 2009. We had it running by the first-ish of October.
So, we've had it 8 1/2 years and it's been worth every penny...especially on days like today.
